“People joke that I went straight from the ocean into the air and skipped land,” Eric Cheng says. But the joke isn’t totally accurate.

Land is where Cheng obtained his two computer science degrees at Stanford, and where he trained as a concert cellist. It’s where he developed a passion for pursuits that are creative and also highly technical.

After that, it’s true, Cheng did start spending a lot of time with sharks and whales. He left an unfulfilling startup job, taught himself the complex workings of underwater photography, and improvised a career around his expertise. He led expeditions to a drool-worthy list of tropical locales, his photos won awards, and he built one of the web’s largest underwater photography communities.

Nowadays, however, Cheng is flying high (and dry). He oversees the Silicon Valley presence of the world’s largest maker of civilian drones, a company called DJI. If drones have a face in the United States, it is arguably Eric’s.”